


oh, take me back to the night we met

by mustangsgloves



Category: The Last of Us, The Last of Us Pt. 2
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, i think, nostalgia!!!, stargazing!!!, these songs are so good and so angsty and I love them, this is sappy but comfort and hurt and it's sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 22:50:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15129446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustangsgloves/pseuds/mustangsgloves
Summary: Dina and Ellie talk about the world before them, and then realize that the world they have is just as good





	oh, take me back to the night we met

**Author's Note:**

> it's my first time writing them, so I found a lot of inspiration in some songs  
> here are the lyrics that fit them just a bit too well...  
> I'd really love some feedback!
> 
> when the night was full of terrors  
> and your eyes were filled with tears  
> when you had not touched me yet  
> oh, take me back to the night we met  
> \- The Night We Met, Lord Huron
> 
> and my heart it shook with fear  
> I'm a coward behind a shield and spear  
> take this sword and throw it far  
> let it shine under the morning star  
> \- I Am the Anti-Christ To You, Kishi Bashi
> 
> I found the last page in the sky  
> cold and sweet, like an apple  
> I found you and now the story has its proper end  
> oh hello, will you be mine?  
> I haven't felt this alive in a long time  
> all the streets are warm today  
> \- Manchester, Kishi Bashi
> 
> hope you enjoy!

“Do you ever think about what we don’t know?” Dina says quietly. Her voice cuts gently into the companionable silence that has settled between her and Ellie.

 

“What we don’t know?” Ellie asks, frowning slightly at the question.

 

“Yeah,” Dina replies.

 

The two lay on one of the many wooden-planked, mossy, probably-not-stable rooftops in Jackson. The cool night air is a more-than-welcome change from the earlier heat of the midsummer’s day. The clouds that had rolled in and threatened rain around noon had dissipated, leaving a perfectly clear sky in which thousands of stars seem to dance. The Milky Way stretches across the dark above them, reaching towards each horizon. The massive, hazy glow giving Ellie an eerie sense of being infinitesimal.

 

“I mean, there was a whole _world_ before us,” Dina continues. Her voice is soft, but her words are heavy – and it’s impossible for Ellie not to hear the unspoken awe and longing in the sentence. “There are _so_ many things we’ll never know about – so many people’s _lives_ that we’ll never really understand.”

 

Dina pauses and looks at Ellie with a searching expression that makes Ellie feel as though the other girl can see right through the flannel and thin t-shirt she’s wearing. It’s intense in a way nobody has looked at her before, but it’s not necessarily uncomfortable. It’s as if Dina is trying to get to the very core of her thoughts, of her being…trying to see right to Ellie’s _soul_. It’s _weird_ , but it’s not _bad_.

 

Ellie blinks in the dim light, clearing her head, before shrugging non-committedly. “Not really,” she says. Dina quirks her eyebrow in that way she always does, and Ellie feels her stomach shift. “I mean, well, yeah. I guess so. Some.”

 

“I guess so,” Dina mocks lightly, a teasing gleam in her eyes, “you dork.”

 

Ellie huffs, but can’t fight the small smile on her face. “I just don’t think about it a lot, that’s all,” she clarifies. She doesn’t explain the reason why, though – how that misplaced nostalgia for a world she never knew and will never know is just too painful for her. Or, how it leads to other memories that she’s just not strong enough to relive.

 

There’s a beat before Dina responds with a different, heavier tone to her voice. “I do. I think about it a lot…”

 

Ellie stays silent, largely due to not knowing what to say, but also in hopes of providing Dina the space to continue if she wants – which she does.

 

“It’s sad,” Dina says quietly. Ellie starts slightly, surprised by the way Dina’s words sound as though they’re straining to keep a dangerously full reservoir of emotions at bay – how Dina sounds as though she might _break_.

 

Ellie shifts her eyes to look more fully at her friend, at the way Dina’s moved her own gaze to no longer look at Ellie, and how a thin sheen of tears threaten to fall from her eyes. Ellie swallows, debating with herself what she should do, what she _could_ do to comfort Dina, but doesn’t make a decision in time before Dina speaks again.

 

“I don’t know how survivors from before _do it_ , you know?” Her voice is steady, but just barely, and Ellie hears the telltale crack at the end of the sentence that gives away just how truly distraught Dina is in this moment. “How could you go from something that’s…that’s not this, from _before_ …to _this_. How do you live life constantly not knowing if you’ll get a tomorrow? Not knowing if your friend, or family member, or other loved-one gets a tomorrow…”

 

With the way Dina is gazing off into the distance, Ellie knows that the she’s being given an out to not answer. Ellie could stay silent, and after a minute or two, Dina would laugh and turn to her and apologize for her brief existential-crisis. They would stay on the roof a little longer, just lay there and watch the world continue to spin around them. Then they would realize that they need to get some sleep before the patrols they would no doubt have the next day, and they’d walk back together – finally separating after a tight hug that Dina would initiate.

Ellie would climb into bed, her body buzzing from the brief contact, and she’d lay there for a bit – once again trying to bury her feelings and silently cursing herself for not _saying something_ , for not taking Dina’s hand…for not just opening herself up a little bit – before she would finally fall asleep and wake up the next morning grumpy and tired.

 

So, instead of that, Ellie opens her mouth and responds, “I don’t know.”

 

It’s her turn to shift her gaze ahead, but she feels Dina’s eyes move to look at her as she continues. “I honestly don’t know. You just…you just have to _survive_. Endure and survive.”

 

Then, Ellie thinks about Joel, and how beneath his many layers of removed stoicism and gruff interactions, he _is_ one of those survivors from before. She knows that he yearns for how it was – for his daughter, for safety, for the life he _had_ – but she knows that he’s making the most of what he has now, too. He’s become the father figure she’s so desperately needed, and in turn, she’s filled in a gap in his life, too.

She thinks to the hours he’s spent patiently showing her how to play the guitar, gently correcting her as she strums the chords a little off. She thinks to his quiet humming in the morning as he shuffles around their small kitchen, making watered-down coffee with the few resources they have. She thinks of the way that he quietly checks in on her, or how he taught her how to properly shoot a bow and arrow. And then Ellie remembers something he’d said, a few years back now, that’s stuck with her.

 

“And, I guess no matter what,” she says, “you keep finding something to fight for.”

 

Ellie pretends she doesn’t hear Dina take a shuddering breath beside her, and continues looking ahead, trying to give her usually steadfast friend room to grieve.

 

“You’re like a walking bumper sticker,” Dina says suddenly, her voice only a little bit shaky. Ellie glances at her, and feels some of the tension in her own body dissolve as she notices the soft smile on Dina’s face. “You know, like those things that people would put on the backs of cars.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know what bumper stickers are, you ass,” Ellie manages to retort, despite the way her heart seems to have crawled into her throat upon registering the even softer look in Dina’s eyes as the other girl looks at her. “And sorry to disappoint, but that one was all Joel.”

 

“Damn,” Dina replies. “I didn’t know the old man had it in him. He’s the bumper sticker master.”

 

“Yeah, well, don’t tell him I told you,” Ellie says lightly. “Either he’ll disown me for sharing his boundless wisdom without asking him first, or the compliment will go straight to his head. Neither option being one I’d really want.” Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Dina mock zipping her lips together, and consequently throwing away the key, and feels her lips quirk upwards.

 

“So, finding something to fight for, huh,” Dina says after a minute. It feels as though there’s a deeper meaning to her words, but Ellie can’t be sure.

 

Until, that is, she feels Dina’s hand nudge her own. Ellie feels her eyes widen as she glances over to Dina, who just gives her a sly smile and holds their eye-contact as she slowly, carefully, intertwines their fingers.

 

It feels as though there are tendrils of electricity shooting through the rest of her body – emanating from where her and Dina’s hands fit together with surprising ease. Dina shifts, and suddenly her head rests on Ellie’s shoulder, and Ellie is pretty sure that her entire body is on fire – no doubt lighting up like a beacon that’s sure to get them caught by one of the stricter members of their small community, or worse, one of the infected. Each nerve in Ellie’s body is alight with the warm contact of Dina’s body in the cool night air.

 

Fighting down her nervousness, Ellie carefully extracts her right hand from Dina’s left, quickly replacing it with her own left one, and draws her right arm back. Stopping for just a moment, she debates whether or not she should do what she was just thinking about, and then Ellie feels her heart betray her head, and she decides that she’s done enough thinking for tonight.

 

Ellie slowly stretches her arm out, carefully bringing it up behind Dina – and promptly does her best to ignore the way the fire in her body seems to burn even hotter at every point in her arm that brushes against Dina’s warm back. She puts her arm around Dina’s shoulder, and pauses, trying to gauge Dina’s response.

 

The other girl simply leans into Ellie’s offered embrace, and Ellie lets herself relax slightly, cupping her hand lightly on Dina’s right shoulder.

 

They sit silently like that – Dina curled comfortably into Ellie’s side – for a few minutes before Dina finally breaks the quiet.

 

“Finding something to fight for,” Dina repeats softly, and Ellie tries not to shiver as she feels Dina’s warm breath on her cheek. “Yeah…”

 

She smiles up at Ellie, the countless possibilities of their world, not the old one they didn’t know, somehow fitting into her deep brown eyes – and Ellie feels her heart skip a solid two beats. “I can do that.”


End file.
